On January 4th and 10th, in Montreal, freedom of expression, one of the pillars of a democratic society, was hijacked by islamists and demonstrators who �marched for peace� but who promoted hatred. The downtown streets of the city were taken over by hooded extremists who proudly carried Hezbollah flags (Hezbollah has been declared a terrorist organization by the Western democracies). The crowd shouted slogans supporting violence and anti-Jewish slogans (�Jews are our dogs.�) (See the attached video.) Jews were singled out as Jews. The crowd also attacked a small group of counter-demonstrators, obliging the police to intervene and move them for their protection. http://www.youtube.com/watchv... The principal leaders of the Quebec unions with Claudette Carbonneau (CSN) at their head, Monique Richard (Parti Quebecois), the Pastoral Office of the Catholic diocese of Montreal, the Canadian-Arab Federation and many others helped organize these demonstrations and participated in them. They may have had good intentions, but their appeal to the population was provocative by nature and the slide into hatred predictable. One can certainly protest against the actions of the state of Israel, but in a civilized society, one does not have the right to call for the death of the Jews. Furthermore, the glorification of jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah and Nasrallah, the genocidal leader of Hezbollah, is a disgrace. These hateful and death-glorifying ideologies, the Nazism of our times, do not have a place in our democratic society. We also find very suspect the selective indignation of the participants in these demonstrations. None of the participants has ever organized any marches or made any speeches denouncing the fate of 400,000 victims in Darfur, of the victims of the war in Chechnya, of the millions of deaths in the war in the Congo, of recent events in Mumbai, or the thousands Israelis who have been subjected to a daily hail of Hamas rockets and mortars for the past eight years. As a consequence, we, the undersigned, congratulate those participants who have since disassociated themselves from these hateful slogans and demand: - that the other groups interested in peace also disassociate themselves publicly and clearly from them and condemn them widely and vociferously; - that these groups adopt a more balanced position about the conflict in Gaza and hold Hamas accountable for their role in bringing suffering to the populations on both sides of the border ; - that the public authorities use all their powers to apply the law against the incitation to hatred.

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